Last year, one in 11 people worldwide suffered from hunger and one in three struggled to afford a healthy diet. These figures not only highlight the fact that governments are unlikely to meet the hunger eradication targets they set in 2015, but also that progress towards expanding access to food is being reversed.
The data in the UN report released Wednesday also reveals a startling truth: As global crises deepen, issues like hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition can no longer stand alone as isolated indicators of public health. In the eyes of intergovernmental organizations and humanitarian agencies that track these issues, access to food is increasingly intertwined with the effects of global warming.
“Agri-food systems operate under risks and uncertainties, and these risks and uncertainties are accelerated by climate change. [change] “One of the serious challenges of climate change is the increasing intensity and frequency of climate change events,” Maximo Torero Cullen, chief economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), told a news conference. He added that warming is having an increasing impact on global food systems, raising human rights concerns.
Torello calls the crisis “a situation that we cannot tolerate, both from the point of view of society, our moral convictions and our economic interests.”
Of the 733 million people who went hungry last year, the number who were chronically undernourished is around 152 million more than the number recorded in 2010. 2019(In total, about 2.8 billion people cannot eat a healthy diet.) This is 2008 and 2009This comes at a time when it is widely seen as the last major global food crisis, effectively setting the goal of equitable access to food back 15 years. The insecurity is most acute in low-income countries, where 71.5% of people struggle to afford enough nutritious food, compared with just 6.3% in wealthy countries.
After conflict, climate change has the greatest impact on hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in the world. According to the FAOGlobal warming will not only disrupt food production and supply chains through droughts and other extreme weather events; Diseases and pestsaffecting livestock and crop yields. And it is becoming more and more Cause people to migrate As they flee the area Ravaged by rising sea levels and devastating stormsThis, in turn, could lead to an intensification of conflict and further migration, creating a vicious cycle.
“What happens if we don’t act and respond?” Torero said. “We see increased migration and increased conflict because hungry people are more likely to be involved in conflict because they need to survive. And that creates a catalyst for more frequent conflict.”
Earlier this year, the African nations of Zambia and Zimbabwe Disaster State Because of the Ongoing droughtMercy Lungaho, a food research scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, said she had seen people lining up in long queues to buy food despite limitations on how much they could buy. “Imagine not knowing when or if you’re going to have food. That’s the impact of climate change,” Lungaho said.
Governments, nonprofits, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year trying to solve these problems, but no one can provide more than inconsistent estimates of how much is being spent or what impact it is having. One reason is that the United Nations report As the report points out, this funding is lacking because there is little clarity about how it will be spent, or even how funding strategies are defined. (This also applies to funding pledges from multinational corporations to address these issues.) The report’s authors call for the adoption of a universal definition of financing for food security and nutrition that includes public and private funds aimed not only at eradicating hunger, but also at everything from strengthening agri-food systems to mitigating factors such as climate shocks.
As things stand, the world is certainly not on track to achieve the goals. All seven global nutrition targets set by governments for 2030 Under the Sustainable Development Goals they Adopted in 2015But experts on the subject It has been debated for a long time These measures have always been more naive than realistic,Too ambitious to be possible“The target is include Its goals include eradicating hunger and malnutrition for all and doubling agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale producers.
Nemat Hajeebhoy is Director of Nutrition at UNICEF Nigeria. Second largest population of malnourished children in the worldUnless governments, NGOs and the private sector work together to address the root causes of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, vulnerable women and children around the world will bear the brunt of that inaction, she said. “What keeps me up at night is the numbers I see,” Hajibhoy said. “Humans have to eat to live, and when they don’t eat, the result is disease and death.”
